About

"My purpose is to apply history to present day events and ideas. Somehow I grew up feeling close to history. I can’t walk down the streets of Centralia without hearing the shots and the forsaken cry, or walk through the parking lot in front of the Frye Art Museum without wondering what the sermon was the week after the minister who lived there had the first private electric light installed in his home. John McLoughlin’s temporary grave in Oregon City served as the centerfield wall for the baseball game we played. One place we lived had a marker on the corner along the Abernathy Creek Bridge saying that here was the end of the Oregon Trail. All the patriarchs on my mother’s side of the family carried the name Thomas Jefferson. History was something that happened before your eyes in present time and I will try to capture that idea in this blog."

Bob Royer is a native Oregonian who adopted the state of Washington in 1965. He lives in Seattle with his wife Barbara and serves on the Board of Historylink.org.